I am going through a transition in life. It is one of ending a seventeen year marriage and becoming a 40 year old man with two teenage children. The particulars? Everyone wants the juicy. Ok here goes.

The second by second disaster replay goes as follows:

About 15 years ago I was a light sider. I believed in, if not altruism, a system where people were generally kind to each other, and tried to earnestly help most people any way they could. Obviously, reality didn't align with this paradigm. It was about that time I simultaneously met two guys, one was Rob - we'll call the other K. Rob turned me onto Buddhism - and it worked because it included the suffering I had observed and felt. So off I went into the slipstream of Americanized buddhism. I was meditating at least 8 hours a day. Losing my job to attendance, house and truck to foreclose, and my best friend to an car wreck where just temporary shifts of stormclouds upon the horizon (and I was the horizon and everything it stretched around). I was more one that anyone. I even went to Atlanta to be blessed by a Rinpoche. Like Gollum, I had found my precious - and it would have lasted me until death (which was imminent with my significant weight gain during the journey to buddhahood).

And along came a spider...

The other guy I mentioned, K, he was a Sith lord. He showed me how suffering was was a vital part to the equation. And more.

So I [makes Jim Carey smurky face] fell to the dark side. I come to call those years spent sitting in a walk-in closet visualising my death (both suicidal and the Tibetan rite of chod) as depression. I began to hate the buddha, and especially ignorant little Jedi who speculate on protocol by advising people and each other to run from pain.

This was how I as a dark Lord was born. Pain became my ally for it it is my teacher. Holding onto ideas/emotions and despising empathy became my ally for letting of go of too many had cost me way too much. The list goes on and on of how I took upon myself the mantle and became the fear, I became the worm needling around in Jedi flesh, and I became the seed of an idea which will be adopted as native once in bloom.

This too all has it's offline correlations within the spheres of influence(power).

My wife held up like a champ the entire time of my decline. She brought me food and enabled me in every way. It was not until I started getting stronger did things turn weird.

Before, she trusted me. My word was final. And, she would have followed me anywhere. But two things changed. She developed a taste for liberation. That was fine by me, as was par with my plans for anyway. But the second change...

The me that emerged from that literal closet was not the man she married. I had become negative, emotionally withdrawn, and in some ways tyrannical.

Well, it didn't take her flipping too many rocks to find a local parasite that is everything I no longer am.

So be it. I am now happy that she is happy. And as always, the work continues to get what I want.

I assume you mean your plans for her anyways? What makes you think you have the ability to impart plans onto another in the first place?You just sound bitter that she decided to leave your sorry closeted ass and do her own thing. Your idea of a parasite is anothers idea of a saving grace.

I wonder, what is this dark side obsession with death? I have seen it in other dark siders as well. While I see the need to acknowledge death I see no need to unnecessarily focus on it.

VixensVengeance wrote:I assume you mean your plans for her anyways? What makes you think you have the ability to impart plans onto another in the first place?You just sound bitter that she decided to leave your sorry closeted ass and do her own thing. Your idea of a parasite is anothers idea of a saving grace.

I wonder, what is this dark side obsession with death? I have seen it in other dark siders as well. While I see the need to acknowledge death I see no need to unnecessarily focus on it.

VixensVengeance wrote:I assume you mean your plans for her anyways? What makes you think you have the ability to impart plans onto another in the first place?You just sound bitter that she decided to leave your sorry closeted ass and do her own thing. Your idea of a parasite is anothers idea of a saving grace.

I wonder, what is this dark side obsession with death? I have seen it in other dark siders as well. While I see the need to acknowledge death I see no need to unnecessarily focus on it.

You covered quite a lot of ground, most of which you could know little about but the scant synopsis provided, but I will indulge in response to your search for my buttons - if for no better reason than recapitulation.

My ability to impart plans was not a theory. [1] Had you read my post, you would have noted a mention of my word being final and her willingness to follow me anywhere. I do not peck out words to fill space; these words were symbolic of the first decade of our marriage. Thrice I wanted to move away from the south. Colorado, the USAF, and Canada all called to me, and I looked into each as a viable place for my upcoming family. While I decided against each in succession, she told me "I'll go anywhere you go". Shall I flesh it out a bit more to aid your reading comprehension? When I met her, she was a diamond in the rough. I knew she had heart and aptitude, before she did. She hated making decisions and looked to me to make them. She drives because I took her to parking lots and back roads and encouraged her. She looks people in the eye because I shoved her through college and made her do things she thought impossible. I practically raised her. Hell, she makes eye contact, has business meetings with strangers, and even argues with me. Thus, my plans for her are more of an extension of my will upon her future rather than an empty boast or questionable hypothesis. And, as we see in her defiance of me today - she has finally made it. I'm proud of her on that regard.

Now, apart from my history - the ability of manipulation insures the conference of plans, and I am a skilled manipulator.

"You just sound bitter that she decided to leave your sorry closeted ass and do her own thing"[2] Had you read my post, you would have noted that some time had expired between my closet days and her decision to leave. Admittedly, I have mixed emotions. While I am happy for her, that is - happy that she is now happy, I am also saddened that it isn't with me. I do hope it goes without mention that I am entitled to my own feelings on the matter, and expecting anything from me but sorrow for this loss is foolish. She was a great ally, friend, resource - and I did love her. Don't expect me to do cartwheels.

"Your idea of a parasite is anothers idea of a saving grace."

Is your mind for sale? Mine isn't. Logic as presented means I must negotiate for my own understanding else be excluded from the enlightened club. I'll save you time here: Enlightenment is over rated. I am not in the club. I do not feel the need to be open minded. And, in this case I do not have to abide by other's perceptions. However, I would guess you are correct. They, like most people, like to be the good guys and have probably by now justified their actions in a narrative where I am the villain. Expected and par for the course.

"I wonder, what is this dark side obsession with death? I have seen it in other dark siders as well. While I see the need to acknowledge death I see no need to unnecessarily focus on it." [3] Had you read my post, you would have seen my focus on death was when I was a light sider. Since then, I focus on life and view anything before or after as a distraction.

Take a substance that gets you high for example. There's tequila drunk, gin drunk, and wine drunk. Three distinctly different ways of getting high. Now personify it like the Mexicans do with mescalito or peyote.

What if I knew a meditation that made my left hand numb? That'd be me. Wouldn't it add significance to it if you tried it and it made your left hand numb also?

Put them together. What if I had found a particular state of mind that was consistent in giving anyone the experience of talking to a peg-leg pirate?

There ya have it. Is it god or my imagination? It's really splitting hairs at that point. The experience is undeniable. It's in the interpretation of the experience where most debates occur. Of course, those who have the experience feel more knowledgeable on the subject because they have the experience. But one thing is for certain, no matter how strong my belief may be or how overwhelming my evidence might be - I could not introduce you to the pirate without first helping you enter into the specific state of consciousness that renders that type of experience. However, that road usually doesn't run both ways. It's hard to dismiss an experience.

At its basest form, a marriage is an agreement... if it were ever really put on paper... the amount of paper would deforest the northwest for just one marriage. Of course, its an agreement of convenience and all for the greater good and all that... but it is liberating to understand you can forget to put the seat down.

Won't help you on your next endeavor mind you... but for the meantime you don't have to make the tradeoffs.

_________________"To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you cannot criticize" - Voltaire

Reading your account made me choke up... Not because of the implied loss in this change - as all change neccesitates loss - but because I feel somewhat identified with a part of your journey. It is no wonder your input to my own work has always been so frighteningly accurate.

Where to now? 17 years is a long time, and I know that even someone as strong as yourself will take his time to grieve... But after that, what will you do with this new freedom... Where are you running with it?

_________________"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." - C.G. Jung